Considering how often the US threatens and spearheads war crimes charges against others (Milosevic, Hussein, etc – just to name a few that actually deserve it) it looks like they are in favour of the war crimes process. But there is one glaring exception: they want to ensure they can never be charged with war crimes themselves. They’ll even go one better: cutting funding to any country that doesn’t sign an agreement that US personel are exempt from war crimes charges.

One of the best quotes is:
“These are the people who are able to deliver assistance to the various states around the world, and if delivering aid to those states endangers America’s servicemen and servicewomen, the President’s first priority is with the servicemen and servicewomen,” he said.

So, let me get this straight. In the process of helping other people, the President feels he needs to protect his servicemen and servicewomen by shielding them from war crimes charges. Is this equivalent to admitting that the US regularly commits war crimes while they “deliver assistance” to other countries? Probably is, but it doesn’t seem like anyone cares, or noticed. All I know is that I hope I’m never on the receiving end of that “assistance”.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030702.wcour0702/BNStory/International/
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/07/01/us.icc.aid/